Gene News and Research

Latest Gene News and Research

Thomson Reuters welcomes GenoSpace to Life Sciences Partner Ecosystem

The Intellectual Property & Science business of Thomson Reuters, the world's leading provider of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, today announced that GenoSpace joined its Life Sciences Partner Ecosystem.

16 Aug 2012

Rice University researcher to see how delays in gene transcription affect cellular processes

A Rice University researcher and his colleagues have received a National Institutes of Health grant to see how delays in gene transcription - life's most basic messaging system - affect cellular processes.

16 Aug 2012

Mechanism for chemotherapy resistance identified

Researchers have identified that chemotherapy induces subsequent treatment resistance through damaging healthy tissue, which in turn secretes novel factors that sustain the growth of residual tumor cells.

15 Aug 2012

Novel device provides retina's neural code to restore normal vision

Two researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College have deciphered a mouse's retina's neural code and coupled this information to a novel prosthetic device to restore sight to blind mice.

15 Aug 2012

Mindfulness meditation prevents feelings of loneliness

Many elderly people spend their last years alone. Spouses pass and children scatter. But being lonely is much more than a silent house and a lack of companionship. Over time, loneliness not only takes a toll on the psyche but can have a serious physical impact as well.

15 Aug 2012

Two papers may help identify gene variants that contribute to OCD or Tourette syndrome

Two papers that will appear in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, both receiving advance online release, may help identify gene variants that contribute to the risks of developing obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) or Tourette syndrome (TS). Both multi-institutional studies were led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators, and both are the first genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in the largest groups of individuals affected by the conditions.

15 Aug 2012

Glioblastoma patients with modified PTEN have resistance to EGFR inhibitors

Despite years of research, glioblastoma, the most common and deadly brain cancer in adults, continues to outsmart treatments targeted to inhibit tumor growth.

15 Aug 2012

Scientists use supercomputers to reveal links between known risk factors and heart biology

About 25,000 Danes currently live with congenital heart defects. Both heredity and environment play a role for these malformations, but exactly how various risk factors influence the development of the heart during pregnancy has been a mystery until now.

15 Aug 2012

New type of medical imaging could help doctors spot tumors more quickly

Scientists from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and Washington University in St. Louis have developed a new type of medical imaging that gives doctors a new look at live internal organs.

14 Aug 2012

Antisense therapy shows promise in treating toxoplasmosis

A targeted approach to treating toxoplasmosis, a parasitic disease, shows early promise in test-tube and animal studies, where it prevented the parasites from making selected proteins. When tested in newly infected mice, it reduced the number of viable parasites by more than 90 percent, researchers from the University of Chicago Medicine report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

14 Aug 2012

Researchers identify key element in the development of Burkitt lymphoma

Burkitt lymphoma is a malignant, fast-growing tumor that originates from a subtype of white blood cells called B lymphocytes of the immune system and often affects internal organs and the central nervous system. Now Dr. Sandrine Sander and Professor Klaus Rajewsky of the Max Delbr-ck Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch have identified a key element that transforms the immune cells into malignant lymphoma cells.

14 Aug 2012

Targeting elevated HLX gene expression may treat acute myeloid leukemia

Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have made a discovery involving mice and humans that could mean that people with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a rare and usually fatal cancer, are a step closer to new treatment options. Their study results were published online today in Cancer Cell.

14 Aug 2012

Novel method identifies new oncogene that contributes to development of cancer

A team of researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, led by Dr. Mark W. Jackson, have developed a novel method to identify genes that, when overexpressed, make normal cells behave like cancer cells.

14 Aug 2012

Gadd45a protein plays a key role in skeletal muscle atrophy

Whether you're old, have been ill, or suffered an injury, you've watched gloomily as your muscles have atrophied. The deterioration of muscle-even slight or gradual-is about as common to the human condition as breathing.

14 Aug 2012

New class of drugs may prove useful in treating cancer and aging-associated disorders

In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) on Aug. 6, an international team led by Igor Roninson, of the University of South Carolina and the Medical University of South Carolina, reported the development of a new class of drugs that may prove useful in the treatment of cancer and aging-associated disorders.

14 Aug 2012

Scientists identify new genetic alterations underlying high-risk subtype of ALL

Scientists have identified new genetic alterations underlying a high-risk subtype of the most common childhood cancer that could be effectively targeted with existing leukemia therapies.

14 Aug 2012

BUSM part of Transthyretin Amyloidosis Cardiac Study

Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have been part of a multicenter observational study called TRACS (Transthyretin Amyloidosis Cardiac Study) to help determine the health significance of a particular gene mutation which is commonly found in Black Americans.

14 Aug 2012

Scientists dissect how sperm cells of the fruit fly build their flagella

Sperm swim, lung cells sweep mucus away, and the cells in the female Fallopian tube move eggs from the ovary to the uterus. Underlying these phenomena are flagella - slender, hair-like structures extending from the surface of the cells, that bend, beat or wave rhythmically. In the latest issue of the journal Developmental Cell, scientists from the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC), in Portugal, have dissected how sperm cells of the fruit fly build their flagella.

14 Aug 2012

Novel Cornelia de Lange syndrome gene discovered

Scientists have discovered that mutations in the histone deacetylase 8 gene can cause the rare genetic disorder known as Cornelia de Lange syndrome, which is characterized by intellectual disability, limb deformity, and other disabilities resulting from problems in early development.

13 Aug 2012

Ingredient for butter flavor in microwave popcorn is a respiratory hazard

The ingredient 2,3-pentanedione (PD), used to impart the flavor and aroma of butter in microwave popcorn, is a respiratory hazard that can also alter gene expression in the brain of rats. Manufacturers started using PD when another butter flavoring, diacetyl, was found to cause bronchiolitis obliterans, a life-threatening and nonreversible lung disease in workers who inhaled the substance.

13 Aug 2012